100 



THE LEAST BITTERN. 



+Ardea exilis, Wils. 



PLATE CCCLXVI— Male, Female, and Young. 



One morning while I was at the Cincinnati Museum, in the State of Ohio, 

 a woman came in holding in her apron one of this delicate species alive, 

 which she said had fallen down the chimney of her house under night, and 

 which, when she awoke at dayhreak, was the first object she saw, it having 

 perched on one of the bed-posts. It was a young bird. I placed it on the 

 table before me, and drew from it the figure on the left of my plate. It 

 stood perfectly still for two hours, but on my touching it with a pencil, after 

 my drawing was done, it flew off and alighted on the cornice of a window. 

 Replacing it on the table, I took two books and laid them so as to leave be- 

 fore it a passage of an inch and a half, through which it w T alked with ease. 

 Bringing the books nearer each other, so as to reduce the passage to one inch, 

 I tried the Bittern again, and again it made its way between them without 

 moving either. When dead, its body measured two inches and a quarter 

 across, from which it is apparent that this species, as well as the Gallinules 

 and Rails, is enabled to contract its breadth in an extraordinar}' - degree. 



While I was in Philadelphia, in September 1S32, a gentleman presented 

 me with a pair of adult birds of this species, alive and in perfect plumage. 

 They had been caught in a meadow a few miles below the city, and I kept 

 them alive several days, feeding them on small fish and thin stripes of pork. 

 They were expert at seizing flies, and swallowed caterpillars, and other in- 

 sects. My wife admired them much on account of their gentle deportment, 

 for although on being tormented, they would spread their wings, ruffle their 

 feathers, and draw back their head as if to strike, yet they suffered them- 

 selves to be touched by any one without pecking at his hand. It was amus- 

 ing to see them continually attempting to escape through the windows, 

 climbing with ease from the floor to the top of the curtain by means of their 

 feet and claws. This feat they w r ould repeat whenever they were taken 

 down. The experiment of the books was tried with them, and succeeded as 

 at Cincinnati. At the approach of night they became much more lively, 

 walked about the room in a graceful manner, with- much agility, and gene- 

 rally kept close together. I had ample opportunities of stud) T ing their natu- 



